Notorious Communist prosecutor Vaš dies innocent in eyes of law

Communist state prosecutor Karel Vaš, a key player in some of
Czechoslovakia’s notorious show trials of the 1950s, died at a Prague
nursing home at the weekend. He was 96. Vaš, who remained unrepentant to
the last, escaped punishment for his crimes in the post-1989 period – a
source of regret to some historians and former political prisoners.

Karel Vaš, photo: Tomáš Krist, Isifa/Lidové noviny
Karel Vaš joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia when he was 17.
During World War II he was imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag – and there
began collaborating with Stalin’s feared NKVD secret police.

During research of NKVD files, historian Adam Hradilek of the Institute
for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes uncovered a letter that Vaš sent to
the organisation’s headquarters from the camps.

“He explains in the letter that he was always a good Communist and
that
he’s willing to die for the Communist cause. He later explained himself
that he started to cooperate with the NKVD in the Gulag camps and reported
on other prisoners that were anti-Soviet.”

The Russians freed Vaš and other Czechoslovaks from the Gulag in 1941
following lobbying from General Heliodor Píka, a hero of both World Wars.
That may have saved his life.
In
a twist of fate, Vaš – by then a state prosecutor – proposed the
execution of the general on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage in
a 1948 show trial.

“He was a military prosecutor in the toughest period of the
Communist
regime, at the beginning of the 1950s. He was responsible for many unjust
political trials and was personally responsible for several death
sentences.”

In 2001, Karel Vaš – then in his mid 80s – did himself stand trial,
on charges of inserting a fake document into General Píka’s file that
was
used as evidence that he had collaborated with British intelligence. He
received a seven-year jail term, but that was quashed by an appeals court
due to the statute of limitations.

Vaš, reputed to have been unusually clever, never admitted to any
wrongdoing. This recording comes from an interview he gave to the project
Paměť národa (Memory of the Nation).

“I did many stupid things out of ignorance. I never harmed anybody
deliberately. But I didn’t stand for any crooked behaviour around
me.”

Karel Vaš, photo: Post Bellum archive
Since Monday’s announcement of his death, former political prisoners
have expressed regret over the fact that Vaš died an innocent man in the
eyes of the law. That view is shared by historian Eduard Stehlík, who is
also from the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.

“Of course he would have belonged in prison. But a court could at
least
have decided that he played a role in judicial murders, and a very
significant role. I’m not a supporter of 80-year-olds ending up in
prison. But it should be at least said that he committed crimes. The court
should have delivered some verdict with that meaning.”